the Automagic City

editors note: This is the authoritative version of the Automagic City Manifesto. Published with kind permission from the authors. The first published version had one sentence altered for it to work better in the context of the Urban ICT Arena communication.

Welcome to the Automagic City

Science fiction author Arthur C Clarke once said that extremely advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Today, technology is so complex that even those clever enough to get how it works will understand only a fraction of everything it can do. Some people even claim that technology can do anything you could possibly imagine. This isn’t true, but it certainly is true that advanced technology can do many things you never would have thought possible – a lot like magic.

The difference between tech and magic is that many of us lack the tools for imagining the workings of tech and all that is possible. With magic, it’s the other way around – we can easily imagine how we would use magic to fulfill our wishes but not how magic is created or controlled. So why don’t we simply use our magic mental tools and apply them on tech? One step in this direction would be to stop using terms such as smart, connected, viable, expanding and sustainable when we talk about the kind of city we want to live in.

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SLAAK is a futures research laboratory and futures strategy consulting agency.

We have over 20 years of experience in futures research and futures strategy.

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